Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
Claire Berlinski, Ed. ·
Oct 20, 2010 at 5:58pm
I recently spoke to Mona Eltahawy on Bloggingheads TV. She's a very interesting woman. You can watch our conversation here.
Values Added: Women and Islam
How living in Saudi Arabia made Mona a feminist (04:41)
Is a feminist interpretation of Islam theologically justified? (03:57)
Beware of fake moderates (08:06)
Against the idea that religious conservatism equals authenticity (04:18)
Investigating the anti-Islamic European far right (08:38)
Claire: Turkey’s leaders are playing with fire (09:46)
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Aug '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
I'm listening now. So far, Mona has named about a dozen true moderates who deserve to be heard but aren't. Claire, are you going to track all these folks down for us and tell us more about them?
Oct '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
I've met a lot of moderate Muslims, but I've never heard their story told. It bugs the heck out of me. It's like the media world and the real world are totally divorced from each other. People go on and take a bigoted viewpoint, follow the PC rulebook, and get away with the most astonishing intolerance.
I do take exception to her reduction of "movement to the right" meaning "movement towards bigotry." I have very painful, very nasty family experience with left oppresion, and I can tell you this: there are as many socially conservative, reactionally people on the far left as the far right -- the only difference is the moral traditions they believe the state should enforce.
I mean, just look at how often centrists are demonized for solving problems while minimizing social conflict.
May '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
Who needs 72 virgins? Ms. Eltahawy is a gem.
Sep '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
I listened to this earlier this afternoon...eh. This conversation was filled with more than a little whiny these-right-wing-extremists-are-collaborating-against-the-moderate-enlightened-me from Mona. That she was throwing Tea Party activists into her vision of a worldwide extremist uprising and Claire did next to nothing to defend the Tea Party and the American conservative vision, which is clearly distinct from Continental right wing movements, was more than a little disappointing to me who has grown to admire Claire in the last couple months.
Alas, it would be great if Euro/American racists/xenophobes really were aiding Islamists by elevating them over moderate voices...then through their agency they could simply change focus and the problem would resolve itself. This sort of fantasy would fit well in an academic's or journalist's understanding of how the world works. Unfortunately for us on planet Earth, the Islamists have all the "juice" -- that being the burning desire to impose their will by any means necessary...from buying good will with Saudi cash to beheading rivals in stuggles for control of university campuses across the Muslim world to lying in our faces whenever it suits them.
May '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
This is undoubtedly a result of the standard conception of the left-right spectrum, with socialism/communism positioned on the far left and fascism positioned on the far right. Though the spectrum finds its origins in the French Revolution, socialists in the 20th century endorsed the standard conception of it in order to distinguish themselves from fascists (a distinction without much difference I might add). Today, the standard conception remains.
Jul '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
Joseph Eagar:
I mean, just look at how often centrists are demonized for solving problems while minimizing social conflict. · Oct 20 at 6:58pm
What in the world does that mean? "Centrists" don't do a dang thing but get in the way. Pick a side.
May '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
I think Claire conveyed to Mona that the Tea Party movement was a reaction to government fiscal recklessness (29:58 and 30:17) and wasn't a theocratic movement.
Edited on Oct 20, 2010 at 8:13pmSep '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
For cosmopolitan-minded intellectuals, this conflict between civilizations is a product of conscious decisions by bad actors on one side or the other to stir up trouble where none need exist. If only. How does one reconcile cultures with polar opposite visions of the heroes and villains of history? When I prayed in rows, I was still a product of the West and saw Charles Martel and Moshe Dayan as heroic figures, while my muslim-born friends had pride in the general Tariq and Arab terrorists. While I had no patience for Jew hatred, muslim brothers sitting in the cafe in the Ohio Union would read out loud from passages which claimed that Rabbis advocated having sex with infants and children to cure venereal disease.
Sep '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
The Clinton Administration air war against Serbia over Bosnia? - part of the plot to accelerate the murder of muslims. A Chomsky-esque vision of US policy crossed with muslim chauvinism was well-represented once the doors closed to non-muslims in the Ohio Union basement room we used for Friday prayers.
Were there many who just wished to pray and go back to class without buying into a Muslim Brotherhood vision, sure. Were they willing to stand up against "the beards"...sometimes. To resist the hot heads who moved the sisters' seating to the back of the room in which the MSA met, yes; they ran into one strong-willed Bengali physicist (her father was a leader against the Pakistani Army in the war for Bangladeshi independence and was said to have slit the throat of more than one Pakistani fellow muslim soldier in that war). To counter the ubiquitous Jew hatred...not so much.
Edited on Oct 20, 2010 at 9:04pmAug '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
Michael Labeit
This is undoubtedly a result of the standard conception of the left-right spectrum, with socialism/communism positioned on the far left and fascism positioned on the far right. Though the spectrum finds its origins in the French Revolution, socialists in the 20th century endorsed the standard conception of it in order to distinguish themselves from fascists (a distinction without much difference I might add).
Spot on, Michael.
I still find it unsettling that Mona comes across as naive enough to embrace the standard left/right spectrum without question, when a woman as involved as she is ought to have more awareness of the fact that the "right wings" of Islamic, European, and American politics differ in significant ways.
I saw Claire trying to hint here and there that the political differences involved are far more nuanced than a one-dimensional spectrum or mere bigotry, but I got the impression that Claire's hints weren't registering.
Nonetheless, Mona seems earnest and passionate, and in many ways is a good ally. But she is somewhat blinded by typical "progressive" prejudices.
Sep '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
Michael Labeit
I think Claire conveyed to Mona that the Tea Party movement was a reaction to government fiscal recklessness (29:58 and 30:17) and wasn't a theocratic movement.
Yes, perhaps I was reacting more to not hearing what I wished she had said. Claire did say that the Tea Party was distinct from Europe. Mona then put the Tea Party right back into the extremist category with her "reactionary... ultra-conservatism...the conversation we all refuse to have on race, on class, on immigration..." Mona seemed like a Ricky Henderson-class base stealer at times...
I did hear Claire making counter points to Mona, but overall, I thought she was entirely too polite in the face of Mona's Reuter-esque prejudices such that Mona clearly thought Claire was agreeing with her more than once even though being familiar with the context one could understand that Claire was making the opposite point. Overall, it just felt too David Brooks-Mark Shields. Likely this was in my head. If Jonah had been there beating her with his caveman club, I'd have been happier, but I suppose that wasn't the point of this bloggingheads exchange. Mea culpa.
Aug '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
Joseph Eagar:
I do take exception to her reduction of "movement to the right" meaning "movement towards bigotry." I have very painful, very nasty family experience with left oppresion...
Yes, this is a blind spot of hers. I, too, have experienced nasty leftist... well, it was in America, so I'm not sure it qualifies as oppression, but it was abuse of some sort.
I was surprised to hear her say she was offended by those who don't understand or who misunderstand her culture. Granted, it must be frustrating to feel misunderstood and not listened to so much of the time, but offense isn't the most constructive response for building mutual understanding.
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
No, but it's pretty human--as witnessed by the reaction here to her comments about the Tea Party, no? You're right, it's rarely constructive to get offended. But most of us do run out of patience at some point when we hear the same caricatures over and over. Citizen, I understand why you would have preferred me to react with a more outraged and angry defense of the Tea Party, but honestly--would that work to persuade someone who is not yet convinced? Or would it just feel good to those who are already convinced?
Sep '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
Yes, I came to recognize that after I listened to it again after Michael's comments. But, I wasn't really looking for anger & outrage. More of a schooling of how the Anglo-American Classical Liberal tradition allows for more religious liberty (of course, much more so now that the threat of Catholic invasion/insurrection has faded into distant memory in Britain) and how Middle America is remarkably tolerant, moreover often supportive, of religious minorities as compared to other societies...we don't ban burqas. Now...I think some of that comes from our cultural traditions, but as shaped a long period without an existential threat near at hand. It was easier to be tolerant/supportive of the muslim minority when there weren't members of that minority murdering randomly inside the continental USA. Insofar as they are in a community, that community has earned a backlash.
Aug '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
No, but it's pretty human--as witnessed by the reaction here to her comments about the Tea Party, no? You're right, it's rarely constructive to get offended. But most of us do run out of patience at some point when we hear the same caricatures over and over.
Sure.
Perhaps because I come from a family where pretty much everyone gets offended by pretty much everything that doesn't satisfy them, and I had to learn growing up a) not to do this myself and b) to gently hint towards my nearest and dearest that taking so much offense is not constructive (without just telling them this directly, because that would offend them), I'm hypersensitive to the need to find words other than "offended" to express these very human and often justified emotions.
Edited on Oct 21, 2010 at 10:53amMay '10
Re: Moderate Muslim Watch: My Conversation with Mona Eltahawy
An interview is not like a typical face-to-face political conversation in which there is plenty of time. Claire had limited time, so I don't think she was wrong to let some progressive silliness slide.
Claire, I hope you continue with a series of interviews like this, and not just about Islam.
Could you arrange an interview with Dr. Zudhi Jasser? The "moderates" on TV are almost always progressive and secular. That's just trading one problem for another.